


Clarity

by RockSaltAndRoll



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 19:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4800041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockSaltAndRoll/pseuds/RockSaltAndRoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This was always going to be the worst day of the year: the anniversary of the old man’s death; of Kogami leaving; of the day Nobuchika Ginoza’s hue clouded so badly that there had no longer been any chance of recovery. He’d already been through two days like this. This time though, it was worse. So much worse."</p><p>The anniversary of Masaoka's death coincides with the end of the most horrific case Ginoza has ever worked. Filled with guilt and doubt and misery, he'd probably have found himself at the bottom of a bottle before long, until Akane comes to visit, making him realise he doesn't have to deal with this alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clarity

Water dripped from the ends of Ginoza’s hair, rolling down the back of his neck and dripping off the end of his nose as he searched his room for clean sweats and a t-shirt to wear. He’d needed that shower more than usual – the hot spray and scented steam washing away the horrors of the day, cleaning the remnants of blood and insides from his skin and helping to soothe his mind.

This was always going to be the worst day of the year: the anniversary of the old man’s death; of Kogami leaving; of the day Nobuchika Ginoza’s hue clouded so badly that there had no longer been any chance of recovery. He’d already been through two days like this. This time though, it was worse. So much worse.

It was the case: It had started six weeks ago with the murder of a six year old boy, his body found dumped without ceremony in a trash can three days after he’d gone missing. There had been another kidnap and murder the week after, and another the week after that. The city had been plagued by a child killer; the worst anybody had seen since Masaoka’s time as a rookie detective in the days before the Sybil System. It should have been impossible for anybody with a crime coefficient that high to evade Sybil for so long, yet the killer had done so for six whole weeks. The youngest of the victims had been three, and the oldest just a week shy of her eighth birthday. The perpetrator had lured children away from their parents in shopping malls or museums, and gone on to disembowel them while they were still alive before decorating their corpses with their own blood and a garland of intestines around their necks, dumping what was left of them in trash cans around the city.

Ginoza expected the child killer to be a monster; somebody so evil it would make your blood turn to ice the moment you saw them. Instead of a monster, the man they had cornered in a dark alley not two hours earlier had been barely nineteen with a sweet, round face and large brown eyes. Ginoza didn’t understand how evil could look so innocent. His Dominator had reduced the kid to pink mush within seconds of reading a crime coefficient of 457 and Ginoza felt no remorse about it.

He was only sorry that they hadn’t been able to save the last victim. Akane had discovered him - five years old and in pieces - in a trash can one block away. The Baby Ripper as they had called him, hadn’t even had the time to complete his ritual – he’d just hacked the poor child to pieces and thrown away what was left. He’d known the WPSB were onto him. Now it was over, the murderer dead and the guilt of being unable to save another innocent child weighing heavily on Ginoza’s mind, mingling with everything else this day brought with it. It had been two years since his father’s death; two years since his former partner and best friend had gone on the run. There was so much Ginoza had needed to say to them both and never had the opportunity to say it.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

Ginoza looked up at the sound of the familiar, gentle voice and found Akane Tsunemori standing at the doorway to his quarters. He was also mildly surprised to find that he was still standing in the middle of the room, staring into space with his t-shirt still in his hands. Hurriedly, he pulled it on over his head and gave her a small, apologetic smile.

“Where else did you expect me to be?” he asked.

Akane shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she replied, pushing herself up from the doorframe and wrapping her arms around herself. “Dancing at a nightclub?”

Ginoza couldn’t help the small noise of amusement that passed his lips.

“Nah, I didn’t really feel like it,” he murmured.

Akane smiled at him and Ginoza’s heart ached. She was so small, so fragile-looking like a porcelain doll, yet she was the only one of them who couldn’t break. No matter what, her hue stayed perfectly clear. He felt his smile slipping as she watched him.

“It’s been a really tough day,” Ginoza whispered.

From the doorway, he saw Akane’s eyes soften.

“I know,” she said.

She was with him in seconds, small legs moving fast to cross the room and reaching Ginoza just as his legs gave way beneath him and he collapsed, landing with a soft thud onto the couch. Her arms were around him in no time, pulling Ginoza towards her with and arm around his shoulders and one hand gently sliding into his wet hair. Akane didn’t even care about the water soaking into her top as she drew him close, his head resting right over her heart. It was familiar and comforting, the soft thud of her heart against her ribcage soothing for him to hear, steady and slow.

They’d done this enough times now for it to be normal. The first year anniversary of it, Akane had found Ginoza part-way down a bottle of Scotch that Masaoka had left. He’d broken down and she’d held him tightly and for the first time in his life, he’d fully opened up to somebody. Ginoza had told her about the guilt he carried around with him every day – the guilt of the years he’d spent actively resenting his own father, blaming Masaoka for letting his hue cloud and becoming a latent criminal. He’d treated his father like crap for years, and then did the same to Kogami when his hue clouded too. Ginoza admitted how much he missed them both, that he’d loved them and never told either of them how much they’d meant to him.

In turn Akane opened up to Ginoza. He’d always known that she’d loved Kogami too in her own way, but that she’d also cared about Ginoza’s father. They had mourned the loss of Kagari together, and a year later Ginoza had held Akane as she mourned the loss of her grandmother. They leaned on each other and drew strength from each other, and Ginoza had realised what he’d been missing all of these years – a person he could relate to, somebody he trusted, a person who had suffered loss just like him. He’d been missing somebody to hold.

Before becoming an Enforcer, Ginoza had kept physical contact with others to an absolute minimum but a lot of things that had mattered so much back then seemed insignificant and ridiculous now. Akane also had a remarkable way of breaking through his walls, smashing them down to nothing and seeing just how vulnerable he really as inside. It didn’t even occur to him to mind.

Of course, being a latent criminal wasn’t as bad as he’d always expected it to be. Since he was a child, there had been no thought more terrifying to him than becoming what his father had been – a man turned so far from the right side of the law that his only use was to be a hunting dog, sniffing out criminals of a like mind. He hadn’t realised back then that it wasn’t so much of a choice as it was the cruel twist of fate. Despite everything, of keeping his father and his best friend at arm’s length for years, of not letting anyone close enough to hurt him, his hue had clouded through one single self-sacrificing moment his father had made – giving his own life to save Ginoza’s. That had destroyed his hue beyond all repair. He may not have made it through the other side and into the life he lived now if it hadn’t have been for Akane.

Senior Inspector Akane Tsunemori: once she had been Ginoza’s junior, just a clueless rookie who became too involved with her cases and almost drove Ginoza mad over his concern for her crime coefficient. He needn’t ever have been worried though - Akane’s hue had never risen to more than an aquamarine despite everything she’d seen, and everything she’d been through. Akane Tsumemori was truly an incredible young woman.

She was the reason he was still alive, if he was honest with himself. After the day Masaoka had died right in front of him and his own crime coefficient rose to that of a latent criminal, Ginoza had sunk to a low he’d never known existed. The hue he’d worked so hard to keep clear was ruined, his life as he knew it was over. Akane had visited him every day, had been his constant reassurance for the weeks he spent inside that place learning how to get by with a prosthetic arm and a high crime coefficient. Once Ginoza had learned to let go of his old life it was easier to embrace his new one, and now, if he could believe it, he was actually happier than he’d ever been. She had more to do with that than she knew.

Ginoza sighed gently as her warmth seeped into him, wrapping his arms around her small waist as her fingers softly raked against his scalp. It was amazing how much he craved this contact with her, especially on the worst days, like she could take the pain away just from being close.

“How do you do it?” he murmured, voice muffled by the fabric of her t-shirt.

“Do what?”

“Know exactly when I need you?” Ginoza replied, raising is head to look at her.

Akane smiled gently as she pushed his damp hair back from his face hand moving down and her thumb tracing over his cheek, down to his jaw. Ginoza felt like he was melting, his eyes fluttering closed as he leaned into her touch, breath hitching as her thumb lightly brushed over his bottom lip. This was new and it made his heart beat faster, his whole body growing warm.

“Maybe it’s just intuition,” murmured Akane as the soft pad of her thumb traced down to Ginoza’s chin. “Maybe it’s because I need you just as much.

Ginoza’s eyes opened again to find Akane’s face close to his, brown eyes huge and dark, lips soft as she pressed a ghost of a kiss to his lips. It was everything he’d never known he needed, light and hesitant, a test for them both. Her breath was warm against his skin as she slowly exhaled, moving back, studying him and when he didn’t move away from her, Akane kissed him again.

He would have been lying if he’d said he’d never thought about this, about having Akane Tsunemori in his arms and feeling her mouth move gently against his own. She tasted sweet, like honeyed tea, pressing slow, gentle, closed kisses to his lips, cool hands cradling his face as he clung to her like a lifesaver. He wanted to drown in her, but he was so afraid of what would happen if he let himself go.

“Akane…” he whispered against her lips. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

She softly ran the tip of her nose along the length of his and kissed him again.

“Why not?” she whispered.

Akane wasn’t making it easy for him to resist. Taking a deep breath, Ginoza forced himself to sit back and hold her at arm’s length.

“I’m a Latent Criminal,” he told her.

“You’re an Enforcer,” retorted Akane, frowning.

“Same thing.”

Her frown deepened as she studied his face.

“What’s wrong? Are you afraid my hue will cloud from being with you?”

Ginoza looked away. Well, yes, that was what he was so afraid of.

“You know it doesn’t work that way. Not with me,” she said.

“I’m not good enough for you.”

“Nobuchika,” she murmured, and Ginoza’s eyes snapped up, surprised to hear her use his first name. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known. You’re kind and caring and compassionate. You worry about things you can’t control and you still never stop trying to help.”

Akane put her knee onto the couch by his thigh, the cushion beneath him barely moving under her slight frame as she crawled into the space next to him, turning his face towards her with tiny, cool hands.

“You’re my right hand, the person I trust with my whole life, the one I will always choose to have by my side. Don’t ever say you’re not good enough, Nobuchika Ginoza. Not to me.”

She smiled, her large brown eyes searching his face.

“How,” he whispered brokenly. “How can you think that about me of all people?”

Akane moved forward, her forehead touching Ginoza’s lightly as she closed her eyes.

“You need to stop worrying so much about the how and why, and accept that sometimes things just are,” she murmured.

This time when Akane kissed him, Ginoza didn’t pull away.

He didn’t know where to put his hands. He knew what he _wanted_ to do – he wanted to wrap his arms around her back and pull her into his lap. He’d wanted to do that for years but now that it came to it Ginoza was afraid, and so he hesitated, hands hovering by her face, by her shoulders, and finally finding a place to rest at Akane’s waist as her fingers tangled into his hair. Ginoza couldn’t contain the small noise that escaped him.

In all honesty, he’d been touch-starved for years. Nobuchika Ginoza had never let anybody close enough since Kogami had been demoted to enforcer, and he’d had little physical contact with anyone before that. Then there had been Akane. Akane Tsunemori who had been there for Ginoza in his darkest moments, had held his hand and stroked his hair and wrapped her tiny arms around him, held him tightly and kept the guilt and the self-loathing at bay. Now she was in his arms and kissing him so softly he could barely stand it, her mouth warm and encouraging, hands cool and soft against his heated face.

It was like a dream, kissing Akane on his couch. It wasn’t really the most coordinated or dignified of actions – their noses bumped as she turned her head a little, teeth clashed when Ginoza gasped sharply at the feel of her fingernails gently grazing his scalp. Akane’s body was warm against his own as she pressed herself against him, her lips curved into a smile as they kissed. She smelled like tropical fruit shampoo and faintly of Kogami’s brand of cigarettes, the scent curling around his brain, making Ginoza feel like he was drowning in her.

They might have been there for hours or moments, kisses slow and light, growing steadily more confident. Ginoza kept expecting to wake up any moment to find it had all been a dream, but it never happened. Instead, he felt Akane’s small, cool hands slip under the hem of his t-shirt and onto his heated skin and he groaned, the sound embarrassingly loud in the quiet room. Akane giggled, light and quiet, and although their kisses never ceased, Ginoza could feel his cheeks growing hot and pink.

His heart beat faster as his own hands finally moved from Akane’s waist, one sliding into her soft brown hair as the other found its way beneath her t-shirt. Her skin was so soft beneath his fingers and this time he couldn’t help but pull her closer, Akane’s small frame fitting perfectly against his own, kisses growing harder and faster so that the room was filled with short gasps punctuated by the smack of wet lips until they were both light-headed and breathless, having no choice but to pull apart.

Slowly, they reclined together across the length of the couch, chests heaving as Akane gathered Ginoza into her arms. He could feel her heart beat fast, the rhythm matching his own as he lay with his head pillowed against her small breasts, her fingers combing gently through his hair.

“Are you okay?” she whispered.

Ginoza nodded slowly.

“I think so,” he murmured in reply.

It had been the most awful day, but as he lay in Akane’s arms, Nobuchika Ginoza was thankful she was with him and that he’d never have to go through this alone. They had both gone through so much, lost people they loved, but through this pain they had found each other. Ginoza knew he loved her, that he always had, ever since that day where she’d called him out in front of his entire team and proven that she was strong.

Sighing softly, he closed his eyes and concentrated on her fingers in his hair and her lips grazing the skin of his forehead, finally feeling calm and at peace. His mind was clear and his heart was light for the first time in years.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr as rocksaltandroll!


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